


Red Lanterns Strung Along

by OpheliaRising



Category: The Mentalist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-16
Updated: 2008-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1640966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaRising/pseuds/OpheliaRising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points."<br/>-Ayn Rand<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Lanterns Strung Along

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to Hsifeng and Franzi, who waded through my spelling errors and pronoun mistakes to make this story much better than it was. Thanks also to Daluci, who generously read the rough draft of this before it was even in complete sentences, and reassured me that I wasn't going mad.
> 
> Written for Vyola

 

 

_He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points._

-Ayn Rand

*

Of all the official types on the scene, he's the only one who never looks at the body. Blond hair in studiously casual curls, suit and sweater-vest worn easily, he seems out of place standing near a murder. The hair says he cares about his appearance, because nobody gets to be that kind of breezily good-looking without a lot of effort. Maybe he's a little vain. His collar is starched and pressed, which falls in line with the vanity. It also suggests one of two things: an extremely organized personality if he does it himself, or a lot of money if he sends even his ordinary oxford shirts out to have them cleaned professionally. 

He's about five feet from the white sheet covering the mortal remains of Rosemary Tennant. Poor, poor Rosemary. He's not watching the sheet, though. Instead he looks around the body, watches the medical examiner, the detectives scouring the street for evidence, the curious onlookers, his teammates. His teammates are a mixed bunch. His boss is a small, almost fragile woman who struts a little to make up for the fact that she does her job around men who are all larger than she. There are three such men: a burly ex-military type with the clipped hair-cut to match, an Asian man who seems unaffected by the scene and bends down to lift the sheet covering the pool of blood, and him, the blond who isn't watching the body. 

The detective on the scene has watched too many Matlock episodes and thinks he's a hotshot. He's grandstanding a little, and the boss-lady humors him. "Sounds like you're on top of it." The blond watcher looks up at her as soon as she speaks; she interests him. Kristina pays more attention to her because of it. 

The detective makes the mistake of thinking that because the boss-lady is small, he can push her around. "Sure. But I don't mind getting your backup," he says. Kristina could have told him that wasn't the way to go, that this lady's probably had men trying to push her around her whole career. If she's team-leader despite the ex-military type on their team, she's not one to back down and take it. 

Sure enough, she shoots him down. "We're not backup, we're lead." Her smile is icy. The detective's hangdog expression is almost comical, and the watcher smothers a smile. When the detective leans down to poke at the body, he looks away, no longer interested. 

As she walks up to their little group, his back is to her, and his body is angled away from both the corpse and the detective's explanation. It's a strange affect: it suggests he's either a deliberately observant personality, or he has difficulty dealing with violent death and as a result tends to avoid it. When he's on a crime scene, it manifests as refusing to look at the corpse. Eventually the detective on the ground gets around to revealing that they don't know where Rosemary was walking home from, and that's her cue. 

"She was with me." The watcher turns around instantly when Kristina speaks, but doesn't look at her while she's talking despite the fact that the rest of his team is focused on her. He only focuses on her face when she mentions that she was Rosemary's spiritual advisor, but from then on he can't take his eyes off. 

His first words, "I'm sorry, did I hear that correctly?" only deepen the mystery of him. It's a theatrical turn of phrase; a normal person would have just said _what_. He's playing to an audience here, especially, she suspects, to his boss since she was the one he'd been interested in earlier. 

The boss lady is skeptical when Kristina explains how she'd contacted Rosemary's dead husband. Cops don't like the spiritual, as a rule. It doesn't hold up in court. She's open-minded enough to ask who might be putting Rosemary in danger, though. Kristina demurs, giving her standard answer about being a channel, not an answering machine. He's the one who asks next. 

"A channel for what?" 

For the energy of departed souls, and she says so. He doesn't buy that bit for one second, though, and there's something jaded in his eyes and in the sarcastic little noises he's made so far. There's a lot of hostility there, and it says he's heard this before and it bit him. 

He actually suggests hauling her downtown (to the eyebrows-raised surprise of his boss), and Kristina wonders about that attitude. Is he a scientist, maybe? Ordinary cops wouldn't be so hostile, and she's willing to bet there's no cop in the world who would take her 'spiritualist medium' routine seriously enough to suggest taking her downtown. They might laugh at her, but she wouldn't threaten them. The hackles-raised snappiness and the 'take her in' suggest that the anger comes from some sort of personal conflict with deeply held beliefs. She'd speculated about an organized mind before, so either he's a scientist who's had a hatred of the paranormal drilled into him for years, or... another conclusion rankles at the edge of her mind. 

When she's curious about something, she generally just asks, so that's the course she goes for here. "Where's all this anger I'm feeling coming from?" 

"Not from me, maybe you're projecting." 

Now _that_ is an interesting answer. The supercilious little laugh that follows it suggests he thinks he's _superior_ to her; not just that he knows she's wrong -- that usually only leads to disdain -- but that he knows she's wrong and he knows why: he knows the act. The line about projection suggests prior psychological training, and the readiness with which he used it suggests that he's accustomed to reading people quickly and vocalizing the conclusions that he draws. 

That's something she realized early, doing what she does. Being a psychic means reading people, and then telling them what you've seen. The difficult part isn't actually the reading, it's the act of telling them about it. Most people, in day to day social interactions, read others constantly. It's what makes humans so remarkably good at getting along with each other. But most people, even while they're reading you, won't call you on what they see. It takes a special brand to not only observe and think analytically about someone the first time they meet, but to then _name_ what they've concluded to the person's face. It takes a certain bravado or recklessness, a certain willingness to cross social boundaries and vocalize the things ordinarily considered too private to touch. And for him, since he did it so readily, it takes a certain practice. The conclusion that only edged the back of her mind earlier blossoms into full-blown suspicion. 

She has to answer his question for the officers that are waiting to hear her response, but now he's made her curious. "Rosemary was my friend," she tells them, and means it. Her heart aches for Rosemary's kids. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you are completely _misreading_ the situation." She watches his face as she says it; the way he hardens when she talks about losing a friend suggests a personal acquaintance with death, and jibes with his previous unwillingness to face the body. He's lost someone before. 

She threw in the _misreading_ more as a fishing expedition than anything she expected to learn from, but to her surprise it's that phrase that he reacts the most strongly to. His delighted little chuckle and "I am, am I?" mean he's familiar with the term. So: familiar with the terms of her field, trained in psychology, observant in a way that normal people aren't, and practiced at telling people uncomfortable things about themselves. He's either a psychic or medium himself, or he's a profiler. He'd be an odd profiler, though. From what she knows of TV procedurals, they don't do much work directly on the scene of the crime, preferring to do a mock-up from afar to avoid emotional contamination. Of course, it's TV, so maybe she's wrong. She hopes they have a profiler working on Rosemary's case. Rosemary deserves that. 

She agrees to meet the CBI for further questioning, and the man seems eager to get a chance at her away from the horrible grief of the crime scene. He's an enigma of a sort that she rarely encounters. He's surprised her, and she's spent long enough reading people for subtle cues that very little surprises her anymore. In spite of the fact that tonight has been terrible and what she wants most is to go home and process, then maybe try to sleep, Kristina finds she's looking forward to tomorrow. 

*

They've called her in, as promised, and Kristina shows up promptly the next morning at 10 am. He's there too, leader of the inquisition. 

Sometimes Kristina thinks her sense of humor is macabre. She'd have been burned alive centuries ago for doing what she does.

He's flanked on either side by his boss and the young girl who'd been with them at the crime scene last night. She's just a kid, really, can't be more than twenty-five, and Kristina feels briefly sad that she has to see deaths like Rosemary's often in her job. She's got an open face, kind, and even though she's pretty enough, she's not the interesting one in this room. 

By the light of day and with a little distance on the shock of losing a friend, Kristina finds herself taking in new details about him. He's wearing a wedding band, and his pose as he lounges back in the office chair is once again studiously casual. She wonders if he ever drops that façade, if he even realizes he's doing it anymore. It had to start as an act, no one adopts that ever-so-faint tension in their bodies unconsciously, but acting can become ingrained. 

His boss seems content to let him do the talking, and his first questions are about money, naturally: "How much did you charge Rosemary?" 

She can't say she's surprised; money is the first place people go if they want to prove she's a fraud without saying it outright. The funny thing is that he's not surprised when she names her fee. Rosemary paid $500 an hour and Kristina knows that's a big number, but when she says it nothing happens on his face. That's unusual; normal people show microexpressions. Maybe it's a cop thing, she's never dealt with interrogators much and maybe they learn to suppress it, but she doesn't think so. The lack of microexpressions says 'walled up', both in the emotional sense and in the defensive sense, and that feels more like _him_ than something she should ascribe to all cops. 

The truth is, he's lashing out at her here and he has been since she arrived. The question about her fee was designed to discredit her. His voice is just a shade too sharp, and it's telling. The other cops are genuinely surprised by the money though, so Kristina continues more for their benefit than his. "Rosemary was a troubled soul. She needed intensive help." The truth is, after her husband's death, Rosemary had fallen completely apart. 

The 'troubled soul' line is one she gives for the mundanes, it's not for him and he knows it, so he doesn't react at all, not disbelief, not anger. He's just waiting for her to pass the formalities so they can get on with what he's interested in. He narrows his eyes ever-so-faintly after she finishes speaking, though, and it's like hitting gold: it's a tell. He's concentrating there; he's reading her just as surely as she's reading him. It makes her feel less guilty when she decides to push his boundaries in search of weak spots. 

It's the girl, the kid, who gives her the chance. 

"What was troubling her?" The girl seems genuinely concerned, but the question itself is virtually an invitation to poke around for his vulnerabilities while still helping Rosemary. She starts scattershot, like any good reader would: testing through relatives to see if anything pings for a response. 

"Her husband was a powerful anchor in her life, after his death I think she felt... adrift, vulnerable." His face isn't saying anything, but the other woman, the supervisor, looks at him as soon as she gets to the death of the husband, and that's a clue. Maybe he's got a dead spouse who'd seen a medium while she was alive, and is still carrying some residual anger? It's worth feeling out, so she crafts her next statement directly for him. "People that she shouldn't have trusted recognized her weaknesses and preyed on them." Kristina doesn't know how much money Rosemary lost to scam artists, but she's pretty sure it's a staggering sum. At least Kristina provided genuine help in return for her fee. Others weren't so scrupulous, and Kristina is still angry at them for taking advantage. 

The, "Oh, really?" she gets in response from him is still studied, but also a little bored and there's not enough hostility there for the scam artists to be what's really bugging him. So maybe it wasn't the dead spouse seeing a psychic. A swing and a miss. 

She tries again; she's still searching for a personal emotional trauma involving violent death, and the supervisor's look was still a clue, so she's guessing the victim was close family, at least. The next obvious step is the kids, and so she continues telling Rosemary's story, but crafting the way she tells it towards him. "As a result, I think her relationship with her children may have suffered." 

There's no response there, but it's not the casual boredom she got for the spouse. His face goes dead. It means he's got some sort of unhappiness with his children in his past, estrangement from a kid, at least. Maybe it's more. If the kid is dead, she's got an instinct that they were very close while the child was alive, and maybe as a result he doesn't have much sympathy for parents who let those close ties disintegrate, as Rosemary had. Kristina doesn't know much about the daughter, but Rosemary had despaired of reaching her son, who reminded her deeply of her husband. Before her death, Kristina tried to help her work past the grief so she could repair the breach between them, but it was a slow process. Now it will never be complete. 

The line of reasoning that says he lost a child feels good, it feels like something she can work with, and she pangs with sympathy for his grief. Doing this long enough has taught her to trust those hunches, those instincts, even if it feels like she's reaching beyond what her evidence actually says. It's a strong enough feeling that she's pretty sure she's on the right track, but it's still thin ice, so she plays the next few questions close to the vest. 

"I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable telling you more." She has to say it for Rosemary's sake, even if it's throwing him a bone by giving him a chance to mock her for taking the easy way out. That's not how he reacts, though. He's deeply unamused by her skirting that question; he still wants her to open up about Rosemary's kids. If he was truly as unaffected as he's acting, he'd be laughing at her for the benefit of the supervisor: _See how she doesn't know much, so she hides behind 'not comfortable'? She's faking_. But he's not, and his stoniness itself is a clue. 

The young girl comes at the question from a different angle. "Travis went missing a few days ago, what did she have to say about that?" 

There's still no way that answering wouldn't violate Rosemary's privacy, so again she demurs. "Well, truly I'd love to help you, but my practice is bound by the same client confidentiality codes that all doctors abide by." He's _pissed_ about the client confidentiality bit, it gets a rise out of him, literally: he stands up and plants his hands on the desk so that he's looming over her. 

He doesn't like it when she calls herself a doctor, Kristina thinks. He's too invested in the idea that she's fake to countenance the concept that she might be doing her patients a lot of good, even if she isn't actually talking to their lost relatives. His behavior is a clue: it means he's not a cop. When she mentions her therapist license, the two cops sit up straighter and take her more seriously. They're both more open to what she's said. On the other hand, the man shuts down further. Which means he's definitely a reader of some sort, and his sense of theatre make her sure he's not a profiler; they'd have no use for the tricks of the medium's trade, and he's using them even now like he was born to it. A former practitioner, then. A psychic. 

He's still leaning over her, and she wonders if he was ever licensed. Maybe he wasn't, and the suggestion that she's better than him at the profession he quit might fuel some of that hostility she keeps getting. So he's a bitter former psychic with a dead child, and a dead child who he was close to emotionally. 

"You client's dead." He practically throws the words at her, angrier now than even before. And for a moment she's furious at him, because it's true: her friend _is_ dead and it hurts. But why would it make him angry? Because she couldn't help Rosemary? That's her first thought, and it's worth following; that kind of anger could be projection. It's a personal jab, the way he threw her grief back in her face, and Kristina wonders why the therapist license would cause him to get personal. It shows that she has some _bona fides_ , that that her practice and her help is real in a sense even if the psychic stuff is crap. But if he's projecting then it's more than just professional envy. Did he lose a client too? Or maybe lose a child to a client? She still hasn't worked out how his avoidance of violent death fits in, but it's tied to his child, and it's tied to his former profession. 

She's got to give a reply for the sake of the two cops, so she settles on, "Her earthly vessel is dead." — he sniffs at that one. He doesn't think much of the afterlife, so atheist, maybe? — "When her soul completes its journey, I could ask her if it's alright to share her problems with you in more detail." 

Even if he wasn't buying on "earthly vessel", he takes "soul" seriously. He does believe in those. In fact, if she's right about the child and the violent death, she'd bet he's clinging to the hope of souls, even if it's subconscious. Whoever it was that he lost, he takes souls seriously, so he wants to believe that they go on somehow, even if he doesn't believe in the kind of afterlife that psychics could access. He's a former psychic and he knows the tricks, so he can't believe in that kind of spirit, but he needs to believe in _some_ kind. 

She recognizes the feeling. It's the same vague, directionless anger Kristina herself feels now, that she'd also felt when her mother died. It had taken her months then to get over the simmering resentment that belief was so easy for everyone else, that she could help everyone else believe in their loved ones' peace and find closure, but in spite of that could never help herself. She knows from her therapists' training that it takes some people years. Those are usually the ones who aren't self-aware, though, and she's willing to bet that this guy is plenty self-aware. That's the whole root of the problem: he can't believe in the afterlife because he knows exactly how believing in the afterlife weakens people enough that they'll believe lies. 

If he's as self-aware as she's reading, then his tragedy was fresh. Within the year, and not enough time has passed for him to heal. Or. Or maybe she's entirely wrong, because he's a cop. How does a former psychic become a cop? Maybe his tragedy wasn't within the year, maybe it was bloody instead and the case is still unresolved. She feels for him, and hopes even more that Rosemary's killer is brought to justice soon. There but for the grace of God, Kristina thinks. 

The rest of their conversation is banter, both of them hiding their cards, and he's more than willing to smile through it. His, "You're good," is both a backhanded compliment and genuine admiration. It's funny, because the sheer amount of effort she's put into reading him is also both backhanded compliment and a gesture of respect in its own right; she'd never delve so deeply for the mundanes. Besides, most of the stuff regular people find so shocking when she tells them is on the surface: obvious and unthreatening. She doesn't dig into someone like him very often. 

"I like to think so," she replies easily, and realizes too late that she handed him that one. 

"Yes, you do." The quip he sends at her vanity scores directly; she _is_ vain sometimes, and she knows it. 

"I think it's important to love oneself. How do you feel about yourself?" She snipes back even though maybe he shouldn't, but he genuinely surprises her. He wants her to do a read. 

This is the tricky part. How truthful should she be? She could give him the basics, or she could play hardball and tell him what she actually thinks. For anyone else, she'd do the soft read, but she suspects that he'd respect her less if she pulled her punches. Well, in for a dime, in for a dollar. 

She starts with the soft stuff: "I think you act assured and arrogant but inside you're troubled with deep guilt and self-loathing --" Of course he's vain, and the guilty is an easy guess if there's something to do with a child and bloody death in his past. Kristina feels it herself even now about Rosemary, and Rosemary was a friend, not family. She's not quite sure _exactly_ what his guilt is about yet, but give her a minute. She feels him out on the fly: "a recent trauma in your past, perhaps?" Reading him as she goes is funny: like searching for an object by looking for where it's not instead of for its presence. When she's close, he shuts down even the flickering expressions. The fewer microexpressions, the more right she is, and 'recent trauma' nailed him. Maybe he didn't lose a client. She's betting now that the trauma actually _was_ his child, and that changes the ballgame. 

Continuing the hard read, knowing that she's about to talk about his child's violent death, would be cruel, would be breaking barriers he's clearly not ready to break yet, so she switches tacks to generalities: "But you're more than a little unstable." It's a good bet; on the crime scene he showed a reckless willingness to cross social bounds when he attacked her for projecting. That reckless streak is probably a liability as a cop, though if he was a former psychic he's probably a demon with suspects in the interrogation room. It's not difficult to give the nod for putting up with him to the supervisor; she says it more because she suspects he expects it of her than because it's really necessary. "You have your work cut out for you." 

The supervisor seems pleased, and the girl is impressed, but she was going to be impressed anyway. He seems disdainful, but then she knew he would be when she pulled that punch. He's convinced now that he's better than her, hasn't guessed that she hasn't shown her hand. With most pretenders he'd be right. Too bad he hooked the real deal this time, in a sense. She's not psychic, but she's as close as they come without it, and as sensitive to behaviors as him. 

"Please. Not to boast, but I am quite a well-known horrible tragedy." He's terrible at being blasé. Those scars are too fresh for him to make this act convincing yet. _Give it a few years_ , she wants to tell him, _and you'll bring the house down_ , but she won't ruin it for the kid. Her kind of faith is inspiring, if naïve. The kid's kept her faith in the unknown even while being around him for so long, and Kristina wants her to keep it for a while longer. 

"One look in your eyes would tell me that. And what makes you think I would spend any time researching you on the internet?" She lets amusement creep into her voice, poking at his vanity again because she can. The corners of his mouth turn up; it seems to amuse him. He knows the vanity quips are accurate, but he also knows they're self-deprecating in a sense: they're both vain creatures, you've got to be to survive in their profession -- or former profession, in his case. Pot and kettle, all that. 

It impresses the girls though, which probably means she was right about the recklessness being a liability on the job. It's a pain in the ass for his supervisor. The kid has the luxury of laughing about it, but the boss-lady doesn't, which means the boss spends more time than it's worth pulling him out of the fire. 

Kristina feels sorry for the woman. It's unlikely she's anything near a match for this one. He'd need a regular Freud for a supervisor to really keep him on his toes. Kristina would bet he grandstands the cases he solves, makes a real performance of it. Maybe she'll get to see him do it with poor Rosemary; god knows that woman deserves someone to solve her murder. She's perversely glad he's on the case; he'll be a pain to work with, but he'll see things a regular cop won't. She'll still needle him about his vanity if he keeps up the hostility, but maybe he can help bring her closure. 

*

It takes a few days for her to realize the police aren't getting anywhere, and it's frustrating. She watches the newspapers and local television stations carefully, but there's no sign of progress in Rosemary's murder, so at last Kristina takes it upon herself to light a fire under the law enforcement agencies. She calls the CBI to invite them over. 

The truth is, they should at least have found the car by now; any child who considers the matter would find it. Two days of a state-wide road search didn't turn up anything, ergo the car is no longer on the roads. It could be parked in the woods or behind some redneck's trailer, but odds and instinct say whoever killed Rosemary sunk the car, and it's not difficult from the nearby terrain to guess where. 

On the phone, the kid is almost pathetically eager to meet her again. They'll be over within the hour. Perfect. It just gives her time to clean the newspapers off her coffee table and get ready. 

*

The CBI sends the eager young girl and Jane, and she lets them wait for a while in the foyer more to test the girl than to mess with him; there's nothing she can do to disillusion him more, and she's interested in how far she can push the kid's faith in the unknown before she gets a shade of doubt. They both surprise her, actually. The kid is less skeptical than she expected for someone who works homicides, and Patrick Jane, psychic to the stars, is more reckless. Yes, she looked it up, on the internet no less. Good-looking, intelligent man who lost a kid in a bloody way? How could she not. 

While she listens from around the corner, he hunts about her foyer for bugs and taps at her mirror, which incidentally is not two-way. She would never be so crass. No, Kristina Fry is good at what she does, and prides herself on professionalism. There is a tiny camera and microphone in the light fixture, and both of them are more discrete than that old worn out mirror trick. 

Patrick, on his quest to prove the mirror is for spying, steps out of the foyer and invades her space without being asked in; his boundary issues are showing again. The kid is exasperated, but humors him. Kristina would bet it's a template for their whole working relationship. 

There's something about the kid, actually. That kind of faith is hard-won: either she grew up with fundamentalist parents and doesn't have much imagination, or there's something in the past that makes her need to believe. Kristina's guessing it's the latter. She lost a father, perhaps, or a dear grandfather to whom she was very close, and now her faith in the continuance of the dead is how she's made peace with it. Kristina's not one to throw stones, and the girl seems healthy about how she handles it. On reflection, it's probably unfortunate that life has brought her into contact with Jane; spend long enough with him and he'll tear down her pretty veils, sure as tides. Kristina almost feels sorry for her, but the kid seems tough. When disillusionment comes, she'll probably handle that gracefully too. 

She ushers them into the foyer, and Jane opens the conversation almost immediately — trying to compensate for the loss of face since he was wrong about the mirror. "You know what I'm struggling with?" 

"Enlighten me." 

"You talk such a good, high-class game, but your... 'temple'" — and she can actually hear the scare quotes around the word as he says it — "looks like a discount souvenir store in Shangri-la." 

The kid doesn't like it, and stares him down chidingly, but Kristina lets it roll off her back. "Well, certain imagery goes with the territory, you know that. People expect a little razz-ma-tazz. Like the shiny suits you used to wear." 

"So you have done some research on me." 

"I have now." And since she's admitted it, there's an elephant in the room that's painted pink and dancing the polka. She'll be the one to get the hard stuff out of the way: "Red John murdered your family, I'm very sorry for your loss." 

When she'd read about the Red John murders, they'd confirmed what she'd already known about his kid. Though it is a little galling that she missed the spouse. It's a huge blind spot, and she doesn't usually miss a guess that badly. The frustration is made a little better by the fact that she was right even about how the child died, though. Jane had lost his family because of a former client, in a sense. Well, someone he was reading, though for the police instead of for show. 

Jane's reaction is typically shut down, but the girl sitting across from him doesn't like it when Kristina mentions Red John. She's protective of Jane, leaning towards him slightly and scowling at Kristina, who wants to ask why Jane stopped working as a psychic after the murders. That question is a minefield, though, especially if she wants to maintain the illusion that she's actually talking to dead people instead of just reading faces. To ask, she'll have to be frank enough for Jane to know what she's getting at, but ambiguous enough that the kid can still believe in psychics if she wants to. "Is that why you gave up your calling?" 

"It was the suits. The chafing, horrible." 

He's clever, self-deprecating, handsome, and got a killer smile. And he's managed to surprise her again. She'd expected him to say that he didn't leave his gift behind at all, that he does the exact same thing by reading evidence for the cops that he'd done by reading audiences for TV. It's the same talent: he catches small details, and he interprets them. It's the logical way to answer the question, and it would have been another way of confirming to the kid that Kristina is a charlatan, a way of emphasizing his superiority over her because he's no longer pretending to be what he's not. 

But he _didn't_ take the logical route with the question; instead he deflected with a quip about the suits. That's... intriguing. He hides behind humor, but why the need to hide? Maybe he buried some ambivalence about leaving the profession, though that would be strange. He's a puzzle, this Patrick Jane. Now Kristina's curious, and sometimes the best solution is to ask point-blank, so she does. "Always dancing, why is that?" She coats the words with a smile, he can take them as he chooses. 

"Don't try to cold-read me." 

Okay. The response is deadly serious, but also the strangest thing he's ever said to her. They've both been reading each other since the instant they met, and whatever their interactions so far have been, they're anything but cold. It's not the reading that he's objecting to, though. For God's sake, he _asked_ her for a reading the last time they met, when he was still trying to take her measure. No, he objected to her reading him only after she'd brought up his past life, his former profession. The read only became uncomfortable for him when she reminded him of how alike they are. 

It intrigues her that he feels the need to fence himself off from his former life so completely. He was a terrifically successful psychic, if the internet is to be believed, and his talents were certainly nothing to be ashamed of. But he doesn't want her to cold-read him, and he can't accept that what he does now is anything like what he did then because it would mean that he's been touched by his former job, and he considers it tainted. She'd been wrong before, monumentally wrong. He doesn't feel ambivalence toward his choice to leave the profession, not at all. Instead, there's a deep, deep self-loathing that he'd ever been a psychic at all. 

It explains so much. It explains the hostility from the start, even the fact that his boss keeps him on when he's a pain in the ass: he feels guilty. Kristina's sure that on some subconscious level, the case-solving is a strange form of penance, a way to atone for how he feels he defrauded people back when he was using their loved one's deaths for personal gain. If he's working penance on that kind of guilt, he's probably the CBI's top investigator by now. 

The sad thing is that it doesn't make him feel better. Back when he was a psychic, he did use people's grief for personal gain, but he also gave other people hope and acceptance, just like the kid has acceptance now. But since his family's gone, he's looking for a way to atone for what he feels was his role in their murders by helping others, and every case he closes gives him no acceptance at all. Christ, Kristina pities him, because that's a dark, dark place to be, trying futilely to wash the stain of your family's blood off your hands. 

It's an epiphany and she'd love some time to consider, but he's waiting for an answer, serious and masking all that pain. She smiles at him tightly. "I wouldn't know how." It's an attempt to let him off the hook, deny that she's reading him and enforce the idea that she's not trying to touch him with the profession he hates, but because he used to _be_ her he can tell when she's lying. 

"We both know that's a lie," he says, and yeah, they both do. 

It's the kid, actually, that finally lets them both off the hook. "Can we, um... talk about the case?" 

Kristina knows who she's playing with now, and she doesn't like the game. She shifts her body position, physically removes herself from the conversation they just had by re-centering herself in the room. It's an indication that she's focusing on the kid instead of sparring with him, and she knows he'll take it for what it is. 

He seems reconciliatory when he next speaks. "So, has Rosemary contacted you yet?" 

"No." It's easier to deny, less chances that she'll make a fool of herself. "Not yet." She turns to the kid, to tack on an explanation. "It often takes some time for souls to make a full transit." It's a stupid explanation if you think about it too deeply, but it gives him a chance to distance himself from when she'd gotten too personal. He doesn't let her down. 

"The celestial bus is running late," he says helpfully. Very clever — ten points to you, Mr. Jane. 

They've wandered away from why she asked them here in the first place, so Kristina pulls them back down to business. "I had a vision about the car used to kill Rosemary." Jane clears his throat and settles back on the couch, preparing to be entertained. "Water rushing into the windows. Tires underwater, resting on concrete." 

"Concrete?" says the kid, "Like a swimming pool?" 

Oh for God's sake. Swimming pools? _Really?_ No wonder they haven't found the damn thing yet. "Um, bigger," Kristina says, willing to lead the kid by the hand if she has to. 

"A reservoir, maybe. There's Founder's Lake, just outside of town." Finally. 

Kristina nods approvingly and rewards her. "Yes. A reservoir." A+ in Visions 101, kid. 

Jane watches with an air of smug self-satisfaction. He probably knew what she was getting at as soon as she mentioned the car. He's made himself a little nest there on her sofa; it's the first time she's seen him truly relaxed -- not acting, not studied, but actually comfortable in his own skin. Interesting. It makes her wonder acutely what he's seen that makes him think he's got her measure. They know each other now, they've felt each other out, and she wonders what her face has inadvertently revealed to him. Maybe it's her grief about Rosemary, though he probably could describe her girlhood best friend by now or something. She's got nothing in her past as interesting as him of course, and she's not too worried: despite his annoying habit of ignoring the lines society draws around polite discourse, she feels safe with whatever he may know of her. 

*

It turns out she's right about the car, which is gratifying. 

*

Over the next few days, Kristina goes about her daily routine and almost forgets about Patrick Jane, fairly certain that they'll have no more use for her on the case. The CBI comes back about Jeremy, though. She'd forgotten that he was living with Rosemary, she probably should have mentioned him earlier. Ah well. Spilt milk. 

This time they send the serious-looking Asian with Jane instead of the kid. She's beginning to think of them as leash-holders. The new man introduces himself as Agent Cho, which is a step up from the kid, who never introduced herself. Kristina wishes they'd sent the girl again, though. Believers are easier to manipulate, and now she'll have to start all over to read this guy. 

"Kristina, how well do you know Jeremy Hale?" Cho asks as they walk in and she seats them. 

Jane is still watching her, but he's professional about it this time: she catches him casing the sitting room as he walks in. He'd been flustered over getting the mirror wrong the last time and hadn't looked around very thoroughly; he's either getting complacent now or he feels secure enough in his read of her that he doesn't need the eye-contact anymore. 

Cho is watching her closely, even if Jane isn't. "He was Rosemary's lover," she says in reply to his question, and since he seems to expect it she gives the quick-and-dirty version of a soft-read. "Kind of a user, I'd say, but genuinely fond of her I think. Quite a good photographer, he took my picture." She admits to the photo without hesitation. He'd done a lot more than take her picture, actually, and she'll cop to the fucking too if they ask, but she's not going to give Jane hand-outs like that just yet. Better to make him work for it; maybe it'll give her a chance to see what he thinks he's got on her. 

"Did you know he was also named in the victim's will?" Jane says, almost grinning when he asks, relaxed still. He's not being theatrical, he's just getting questions out of the way. Jane works better with Cho, she thinks, trusts him more. With the kid he grandstands and doesn't quite trust her to ask the right questions, but with this one he's more laid back. 

"Well, if that was Rosemary's decision, fine, but what are you getting at?" she replies. Questions answered with questions; they're on even footing. 

It's Cho that answers, though Kristina is curious about what Jane might have said. "Over the last decade, five different people have named you in their wills." Oh. This. 

Time to set the record straight on the money. "Against my expressed wishes. I've helped hundreds of sick clients confront their fear of dying, and I assure all of them that I will try and speak to them after they're gone, but I have never asked any of them for _anything_ , ever." 

The very serious Agent Cho does not look sympathetic to the fact that people keep leaving her money. It's not like she asks them, anyway, she was telling the truth about that, but the kind of people who come to psychics tend to be gullible and if they like her they're often generous, too. It's the fee, actually. Charge as much as Kristina does per hour and a lot of your clients will tend to be the type who throw money at their problems. It turns out that they also throw money at the solutions, hence, the bequests. 

She deliberately raises her eyebrows a little as she tries to convince them, widening her eyes by a fraction to look innocent. Kristina's not sure how far she gets with Cho, but Jane certainly rolls his eyes. It's a former profession thing. He used to do the same so he understands how it works. He was the psychic to the stars, after all, and she's willing to bet that a good chunk of his money came from when those stars were posthumously grateful. 

To her surprise, he segues directly to Jeremy again, which is an interesting transition. Wonder if Rosemary also named Kristina in the will. That would be nice, though Rosemary's death is still a little too fresh, and thinking about money feels disloyal to her memory. "Then why did Jeremy get nervous when your name was mentioned?" Cho asks. 

"Probably because we had sex on a couple of occasions." 

He was a worm, Jeremy, but had a dick like a porn star. It only took her one afternoon with him to figure out why Rosemary was paying him to stick around, and hell, if she had Rosemary's kind of money she might have paid him too. "We had fun. He's a good time." 

It's a slight invitation to joke about it, but Jane isn't as willing to take her up on it as she thought. Then again, maybe this is another minefield: he has a dead spouse, so he might not see eye-to-eye with her about Jeremy's cheating on his lover. He doesn't miss the fact that she's left the floor open to humor, though. 

"Have you spoken to Rosemary yet?" 

Kristina has no compunction about making 'Rosemary' the mouthpiece for her own feelings on the matter of Jane. He's not the only one who's had practice at crossing lines of politeness and being frank. 

"She seems quite taken with you." Jane gives a pleased little laugh and plays along. She'd love to see him as an audience plant one day, she'd bet he'd be perfect for it. "She said you were a good man." She slows down, as though she's quoting 'Rosemary' directly. "A deeply misguided and damaged man, but good." Jane and Cho exchange sly little glances that have more to do with stroking Jane's masculine ego than the case at hand. 

It isn't difficult to admit that he's attractive. No lie, she wouldn't mind seeing more of him, and the previous train of thought about Jeremy hooks itself quite neatly onto Patrick. Men with his sort of inherent self-confidence often have big dicks. It's a macho thing, she supposes. She wonders what he looks like naked, then wonders how much of her thoughts are showing on her face. Cho seems amused, at least, in his quietly stone-faced way. 

Jane takes it better than she'd thought he would. "Well, that's very flattering," — and again Kristina wonders exactly how much he can see on her face — "Did she happen to mention who'd killed her?" 

"No. She doesn't know. She does want me to keep trying to help you as much as I can, though." 

It's an opening, and he takes it. "Oh, now that you mention it, I'd love to hear your CD records of your sessions together. And can you have Rosemary appear at the reading of the will?" 

What. Oh, for Christ's sake, just what she needed: another blossoming opportunity to fall flat on her face. It pisses her off, actually, because it wouldn't be a problem if she didn't know that he'd also be in the audience. One magician can ruin another's trick more easily than anyone else in the whole world. 

"She's a departed soul, not a wedding singer, you can't book her in advance," she snaps at him, because she's genuinely annoyed. Professional courtesy should have kept him from asking, but maybe he left that behind when he left the profession. Bastard. 

She leaves to go get the CDs, and it feels like a victory for her. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either, because she wants a chance to think about it. Maybe something will come to her in the next few days. Sometimes she gets strokes of inspiration, and it would admittedly be satisfying to pull off a séance for eleven or so people even with Jane watching. 

*

Surprisingly enough, it's not inspiration that comes to her. Or at least, not in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it's Jane that comes to her two days later, with a plan of his own, practically dancing with glee at the scheme he's cooked up. 

He thinks Clara did it, and he's willing to go so far as to enlist her help with his grand reveal. She's pleased, and she trusts his instinct on Clara. Kristina knew Rosemary well, but never met her daughter. Rosemary had said something about them being estranged, and Kristina knows humanity well enough to guess that the daughter wasn't overly thrilled with Rosemary giving away money, or with Jeremy's free-loading. Upset people do strange things, and Jane's sharp enough to know when he's got his man. Or woman, as the case may be. Good, she's happy that Rosemary's death won't go un-avenged. 

She feels like a magician's assistant, getting ready for their joint performance. She can't exactly wear sequins, that would be tacky, but she settles for a shiny scarlet satin in tribute to the costume the old showgirls used to wear. Close enough. Jane lets her handle the details of the séance since that will be her show to run, and promises he'll provide the soundtrack when it's appropriate. She sets up a lovely arrangement in her sitting room, a central circle around a low table for the family and herself to sit and hold hands, with a larger outer circle for lawyers and CBI agents and other onlookers. 

When the big night comes, she dims the lights in her sitting room and scatters candles across every available surface. The large white candle that she keeps especially for this purpose goes in the middle. It looks normal, but the wax part of the candle is actually just for show. The 'wick' is a long-burning fire-retardant string. It only burns when exposed to air, and there's an air-tight tube down the center of the candle. The trick is that a tiny motor under the thing can raise the wick so that the candle burns brighter and pull it back in so it gutters on cue. The motor is controlled by a remote she keeps under her foot. 

When everyone has assembled and is holding hands, she calls on Rosemary in her best professional voice. "The veil will be drawn back and Rosemary will come to us, as long as we believe." Some in the room look skeptical, and some are convinced. The girl CBI agent is eating it up. The boss looks like she sides more with Jane. "As long as we _believe_ ," Kristina repeats. "Everybody concentrate on the candle in the center of the table." Most of them cooperate. It's enough. Even Jane is compliant. 

It turns out that as convincing an actor as he is in day-to-day life, he's exquisite when he's really trying. Nothing on his face betrays him: he's a pitch-perfect mix of disdainful towards her and wary of the unknown. She'd bet he brought the house down back when he was reading people for money. She'd like to have seen him then, it would probably have been educational. 

"Look at it, and concentrate on Rosemary." She continues her séance. So far it's going well. "Come to us, Rosemary. Come to us. _Speak_." Jane told her to ask, but didn't tell her what to expect. What she gets is a lovely, low whisper in return. " _Kristina._ " Oh, this is good. The looks on people faces are absolutely priceless. Jeremy especially looks uncomfortable, and Kristina would bet he's already moved on to his next girlfriend. He didn't expect to hear from Rosemary again. Awkward. " _Kristina_."

"It's me, Rosemary. I'm here, as I promised you I would be." Jane was right about Clara. Panic chases guilt across her face, and Kristina can see it even in the dark. "All your friends and family are here too, Rosemary," she says, just to rub it in a little for Clara. The girl deserves to suffer some; Rosemary was a good woman. "Is there anything you'd like to say?" Clara's about to jump out of her skin. "Or _ask_? Rosemary?" 

Jane doesn't let her down. " _Clara. Clara_."

"Mom?" Oh, Clara is so very guilty. Kristina hopes she goes away for it. 

" _Why Clara? Why did you do it?_ "

*

Clara will go away for murder, and Kristina is pleased enough with the results of Jane's plan for the séance that she goes to visit him. The CBI building is a mixture of red brick and glass, very industrial-chic. Kristina locates Jane curled up on a tiny leather couch that's about two feet too short for his frame. He looks like he's trying to sleep. She's willing to bet that he likes sleeping with people around; the background noise probably keeps him from listening too deeply to his own thoughts, and with his kind of self-loathing, she can't imagine that he gets much sleep by thinking into the quiet. 

Really, that's what decides her: she's seeing Jane here at his most relaxed. She's willing to bet whatever money Rosemary left her in the will that Jane will never be more open or have his barriers lowered more than at this moment. He just closed another case, he's still got that flush of victory in his cheeks and the faint hope that he's somehow achieved penance hasn't yet begun to fade. She's seeing Jane at his best, and this is what she sees: a man who's still running, terrified that he'll be alone in his own head, unable to drop the act that he constructs around himself even when he's about to fall asleep. She feels sorry for him, and she regrets what needs to be done, but when she trained for her therapist license she learned that the most painful epiphanies are the ones that leave us the most whole, and she respects him enough to want that kind of healing for him. So she's about to shove a knife into his back, and this is how Brutus must have felt, she thinks. Even if she knows that good will come of this, it won't make what she's about to do any less painful for him. 

"I need to talk to you," she begins, and he interrupts. 

"Fire away." Doesn't even bother to open his eyes. His body language says he's settled down here and it might take an act of god to move him. 

"In private." 

"This is private." It's the middle of an open office room, twelve desks and two cubicles littering the space. 

" _More_ private." Ordinarily she'd let him stay on his couch, but some things shouldn't be open to the scrutiny of others. She can't protect him here and she's about to be unspeakably cruel, but she'll give him what she can, even so. 

He sighs a deeply put-upon sigh and peels himself up into a sitting position, then leads the way to one of the interrogation rooms. There's a letter A on the door, and the stereotypical single bare bulb provides dim light overhead. They're both aware of the theater that goes on here. 

"So." He seats himself on the edge of the table and she takes the chair, sitting below him. He's almost eager when he faces her, which is ironic, in a sick way. 

"Promise me you won't interrupt. Hear me out." Again, he humors her. 

"Okay, I promise." The sleepiness hasn't quite left his voice. 

"I talked to your wife." 

"Oh, hang on, this —" he begins but she cuts him off, raising her eyebrows to remind him that he promised. He begrudgingly falls silent again, and she sighs before she continues, because neither of them really wants to hear this. 

"Every since your wife and daughter were killed, there's a question about that night's events that's been tormenting you, yes?" She watches the smile slide off his face as soon as she starts, and has to prompt him for the 'yes' that confirms to her that she should go ahead and do this. He's just open enough that this will do him good; if he'd deflected with a no there, he wouldn't have been ready. She doesn't want to keep eye contact for this next part, but her feelings aren't the ones that matter here, so she looks him square in the eye for all of it. 

"Your wife wants me to tell you that your daughter never woke up." His face hardens, oh how he wants to hate her for this because he knows it's a lie, he knows it because he can read her as certainly as she's reading him right now, but the offer of that belief, the same belief that's let the kid come to terms so gracefully with whatever she's left behind, the faintest gleam of that tantalizing grace keeps him open. It cracks him, and she watches his jaw clench, his lips tighten and tremble. God, there's so much guilt, so much hurt there and so much anger. 

"She didn't know what happened," Kristina continues, merciless. "She wasn't scared, not even for a second." He'll lash out at her at first, for the next few days he'll loathe her, but maybe over time as he thinks about it (because she has _made_ him think about it) he'll understand what she's doing here and why. She watches him and won't let herself look away, because she needs to know that he won't break. 

"You're done channeling. That's it?" he asks. His chin comes up just a hair, like he might punch her if it's not, but yeah, that's it. She feels wrung out. 

"That's it." 

"Thanks," but his tone of voice says _fuck you_ and _Christ, I can't take this_ at once. She's still watching him, and it's the first time since they met that he hasn't been looking straight back at her. He swallows like his throat's too small, but something in his eyes is enough: he'll be fine, in a way. Give him time and give him vengeance, and he'll be fine. 

She wasn't entirely joking in that first interview when she said that she sees things in people's eyes; sometimes the cues are so faint that even she can't consciously tell where the information she's using is coming from. But if she were a real psychic, if she had a fortune to place on the future, she'd lay a bet on Patrick Jane. 

Because for an instant she sees him so clearly that it might as well be a vision: maybe next year, maybe ten years from now, the time doesn't matter. Somewhere in the future, he'll find Red John. And he'll slaughter him, blood everywhere and not enough finesse for smiley faces. Then they'll haul him away in chains or maybe he'll get away with it, maybe his pretty boss will understand him enough to lose the evidence or forget she's seen something. But no matter if he's in prison or home and safe, when he wakes up the next morning and sees the sun rising pink and gold on that horizon, it'll be like the first time for him. All that darkness will be gone, and Kristina Fry would bet he'll be beautiful when he smiles. 

 


End file.
